Denetria Council, a domestic violence survivor, was beaten with an electrical cord by her ex-boyfriend. Photo: Emily Field

When she finished speaking in public for the first time about her experience with an abusive boyfriend, Denetria Council was in tears. But she was also smiling.

“I didn’t think I could get through it without blubbering, I was so scared,” she said last month in a church basement in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where she addressed a small crowd of Brooklyn women at a community health fair.

Council’s story is an extreme example of the pervasive domestic violence problem in Bushwick and in Brooklyn as a whole. Five years ago, Council’s then-boyfriend, Jason Page, kept her imprisoned in their Bushwick apartment for 17 days. He tied her to a crib and whipped her with an extension cord until she bled. Her back and her arms still bear the scars. He was convicted in 2009 of kidnapping and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Brooklyn has the highest rate of reported domestic violence of all the city’s boroughs, New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services statistics show. Last year, Brooklyn tied the Bronx for the most domestic violence-related homicides, 22 out of a total of 69 citywide.

And in Bushwick, a neighborhood grappling with high levels of poverty and crime despite its artsy, gentrified image, the rates are especially high. The number of police responses to domestic violence incidents in Bushwick was 22 percent higher than in the borough as a whole.

“I think it is a community that is faced with a lot of stress and pressure,” said Abbie Tuller, executive director of the North Brooklyn Coalition Against Family Violence. She says that areas with high crime rates often also have high rates of domestic violence. Though crime in Bushwick has declined by almost 20 percent since 2001, last year there were twice as many rapes and 60 percent more assaults in Bushwick than the Brooklyn average, according to the NYPD.
Women living in low-income areas are twice as likely to be victims of domestic violence; in Bushwick, the average income per capita is about $15,000, compared to the NYC average of $30,500, according to 2010 census data. In New York City, black and Hispanic women are also more than twice as likely than women of other races to be injured or killed by their partners, according to the Department of Health. Bushwick is 26 percent black and 65 percent Hispanic, according to 2010 census figures.

“Bushwick is a mainly Hispanic community,” said Antonio Bascom, who works with domestic abuse victims in Brooklyn with Jericho Road, a domestic violence non-profit founded by his wife, Dr. Elena Bascom. “I’m Hispanic and in Hispanic culture, we value family above everything else. A woman will stay with her husband because of those ethnic ties and because of the stigma.”

Those numbers should not lead anyone to believe that domestic violence is confined to communities of color or to a low-income communities, warns Rona Solomon, deputy director of Brooklyn’s Center Against Domestic Violence. “The reason we have more numbers for poor women is because they need public help,” said Solomon, who also said that domestic violence happens in every socio-economic category. “We can’t get complacent about domestic violence and think it happens to other people, to ‘them.’ We’re all them.”

Council’s ordeal came at the hands of a man with a history of violence against women. Abusive men, said Carl Joseph, who runs domestic violence prevention workshops for men through Jericho Road, repress their anger until it boils over. “They pent up their anger and emotions and they take it out on women because they think they’re weaker.”

“It’s really a men’s issue, not a women’s issue,” he said.

Council had no idea about Page’s past when she began dating him when she was 20 and he was 32. She found out that he had been an abuser only during the subsequent trial, when a previous girlfriend came forward to testify against him.

For the first seven months of their relationship, things were fine, she said.

But then he slapped her so hard that it left a handprint on her face. A childhood friend had called Council, and Page erupted in jealousy.

Things returned to normal for a few months. Page would have dinner on the table when she came home from work. He’d lay her pajamas out for her, run baths for her. “He treated me like a queen,” Council said. “I thought I had found the man of my dreams.”

But the violence escalated, she said. “He’d cry when he’d see the bruises and say he’d never do it again,” said Council. “I couldn’t bring myself to leave him because I loved him.”

Tuller says this is a common cycle in domestic violence, and that often women make multiple attempts to leave their abusers. “It is hard for women to merge the two notions of their partner who they love and who may have done great things for them, but at the same time has done horrible things,” she explained.

“I thought he was going to change,” said Council. “I thought I could change him.”

In July 2008, when Council returned from a trip, Page tied her up and beat her for more than two weeks. Council escaped while he was sleeping and fled to her mother’s apartment in Bed-Stuy.

Today, Council lives with her boyfriend, Marco Longmire. She’s expecting her first child in October and working as a home health aide.

Once she met Longmire, she said, she knew it was time to come to terms with her ordeal with Page. “I had to move on so he wouldn’t get the best of me.

5 Responses

I just watched her story and I felt something wasn’t right about her like she was MR/Slightly. I kept trying to figure it out but she seemed like she had a disability. Nice girl and glad he got 25 but he deserved 40 years. He will get out and abuse and older women as he will be 59. He will choose someone who will not tell. He has some serious issues. He is atleast bipolar with some explosive disorder. He needs to be a lifer. I’m serious.

I agree with you Coco. I work in social services and behavioral health and listening to her talk during the interview lead me to believe that Denitra was not “dealing with a full deck” as my mom used to say.

really how could you tell it was something wrong with her because I didn’t see it. to me she sounded like a lot of battered woman who still love the man even after the person beats them. Im glad he got 25 years because she didn’t derserve that no matter that. I heard she has someone new in her life and is pregnant. glad she was able to move forward with her life.

I have witness my mother kill her abuser and shoot another man she was having affair with. My mother was a abusive mother as well so definitely abusers suffer from a form of mental illness..I became drug addicted because I lacked cooing skills and suffered PTS..however through counseling I have been clean 26 years..and now a college graduate..I took me to develop coping skill and building self-respect and learn how to develop my own values that I never developed..I believe the trama she experience had a great impact her however, just because she may not be able to verbally articulate her words does not make her have a disability. Traumatic situtations affect people differently but batters don’t discriminate they beat educated, wealthy, poor all types are abused. Never is it the fault of the victims whether based on that..misinformation is where it starts..not knowing your own worth. I thank God I survived and can help others build tools to be aware of the warning signs of abusers..they are very charming in their deceit ways…not easy to always spot as evil doers.